What I Did On My Summer Vacation: Part Tau*

I went to Arizona to do my annual retreat thing with my college besties. This year had considerable less sloshy baby poop in my lap and more "shush, shush little baby...." (small groan of frustration with overtones of glee because it's not my baby) "Sorry, Scooby, can't seem to calm him down." (PLOP! goes the baby back in mommy's lap).

It's a good thing my friends keep having such adorable babies, otherwise I'd be all "Awwww... Crapazoidal!! That ugly baby is going to cry again. I'm soooo out of here! I wonder if Fiesta Mall is still the place for the cool people to hang. Pish! What am I talking about? If I'm there, obviously it is!" Which would have been weird because, in high school, I was never a mall bunny. Mall siamang? Mall bobcat? Mall mule? Whatever. I'm basically trying to say I never hung out at the mall much. I was more of a *knock* *knock* Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies? type of high schooler. Meaning I was way less likely to get pregnant, do drugs or drink irresponsibly (ummm, this will be quite obvious in about 30 seconds). Not to say that the people who hung out at malls were all shopping for trendy preggo tops while sipping from their rum flasks and making appointments to smoke pot out by the dumpsters. I wouldn't know! Because I was too busy trying to earn this by selling 350 boxes of Thin Mints:

Now, I loved Girl Scouts. Heck, I'm probably genetically destined to become Cookie Chairman of my neighborhood someday. However, what Girl Scouts did a horrible job preparing me for was ordering an alcoholic drink from a piano bar when I was thirty-five. True story.

You see, we had dropped the babies off with their respective daddy's and were dressed up and ready for a night on the town! In a piano bar! Without adorable chubby baby butts! And, as we hurtled along the highway in our mini-van this was my thought process:

"Man. I haven't been to a bar since college. Huh. I never even ordered a drink from a bar in college. DUDE! I should totally order a drink from the bar!! It'd be like a life story!!! Like bungee jumping or hang gliding. People would be all, 'Have you ever jumped from a bridge with only a twisty telephone chord looking thing keeping you from crashing to certain death?' And I'd be all, 'No. But I ordered a drink from a bar once.' And then they'd be all, 'Dude! I've always wanted to do that!' Yeeaaahhhh! I'm totally ordering a drink tonight!"

A few miles pass.

"Wait. I don't really drink. I mean sure, a Margarita at a restaurant every once in a while (OK, every four years), but I can't order a Margarita, can I? Would it even come with the salty rim? Because if it doesn't have a salty rim, it's not worth it. And I never liked those nasty sweet fruity drinks that everyone orders. Crud. I'm going to look stupid. OK. Think. I can't order a beer because, one, I don't really like beer, and, two, the bartender would probably ask me what kind I wanted and then what do I say? Bud Light? Then it's not so much a life story as it is a Super Bowl commercial. Maybe I should do some research...."

More miles pass as I mumble to myself and shake my iPhone fruitlessly (to make it go faster).

"Wait! Someone once said that Mike's Hard Lemonade is pretty good. OK. I've got my plan. I'll walk up to the bar and order a Mike's. It's simple, it's alcoholic, and there's no way the bartender can look at me and say "What's in that?" with a confused expression on her face. Yeah. All the cool people order Mike's at bars. Definitely...."

Cut scene to the piano bar where I'm enjoying the musicianship of the players as they smoothly move from Elton John's 'Bennie and the Jets' to Train's 'Hey Soul Sister' to Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to Garth Brooks 'Friends in Low Places' and other better songs that I can't remember right now. Because, seriously people, 'Friends in Low Places'? No. Just stop requesting that one. You're just embarrassing yourself. Dude, even a Journey song would be better. (But not Michael Bolton. For the love of all that is good-NOT MICHAEL BOLTON!)

Anyway, eventually I make my way to the bar, lean in confidently and say, "I'd like a Mike's." As I'm pulling my cash out of my purse the bartender yells (because Garth Brooks is up again) "I don't have that!" Crapaziodal! What did she say!?! I have no clue what to do now. I'm completely unprepared. I should have done more research!! While I'm internally freaking out the bartender keeps talking and somehow I end up walking around holding a Smirnoff Ice in my hand. And I don't have a clue what a Smirnoff is.

Cut to two hours later and there I am, showing off my coffee house roots by clutching my empty glass bottle of vodka (thank you iPhone and free WiFi) while awkwardly bopping along to 'Play That Funky Music White Boy'. Why? Well, because I have horrific rhythm people, and apparently 12 ounces of vodka doesn't help. Also because, I couldn't find the recycling bin. I thought about slipping the bottle into my purse and taking it home, but then thought, noooOOOooo, that would look kinda, you know, odd. Or stupid. Or possibly illegal. Either way you look at it, there I was, stuck pulling up my all-natural organic cotton big girl panties and sidling up to the bar to ask the bartender, "Excuse me. Where's the recycling?"

A confused stare and a point to the huge black trash can later, I had my answer: bars don't have recycling.

Because, apparently, bars are NOT run by the Girl Scouts.

Unless you count that time when the beer was buried off site at Girl Scout camp one summer. But that's a completely different "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" story.

*Because not only are my college besties awesome and get comped cover at piano bars, they also watched this video and pontificated upon the ramifications of a world in which physical mathematics is turned on its head. Obviously they are awesome, because the only thing I got out of the video was a really big craving for cherry pie.**

**We also watched this video. I thought it was AWESOME! They politely chuckled. Maybe I was smarter in college....

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